1. Field of Invention
This invention pertains to the design of a screw less, clip mounted computer drive. Specifically, in the present invention, a traditional drive mounting bracket or computer chassis is equipped with flexible tabs which secure a clip designed to engage and be locked into the standard screw holes located on the drive being attached.
2. Description of Prior Art
Historically, computer drives such as CD-ROMs, floppy disks, DVD drives and the like, were attached to the chassis of a computer using standard micro sized machine screws. While such method of attachment was secure and precise, it required significant amounts of labor. Further, even in the most careful of environments, damaged resulted to the other internal components of the computer due to dropped screws and tool slippage.
The perceived solution in the computer industry to the problems inherent in the screw type drive attachment means has been to incorporate separate drive rails in the chassis design which allowed the computer drive being attached to slide into and then be locked into place. Typical of this type of attachment are those inventions disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,806,949; 5,801,920; 5,734,557; 5,599,080; 5,595,501; and 5,262,923. This solution, however, did not eliminate the use of micro sized machine screws to attach the rails to the computer drives. Additionally, use of rails necessitated the need for some type of electrical conductive grounding path between the metal drive housing and the metal computer chassis as disclosed on page 1, line 64 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,557. Since the rail method of attachment did not eliminate the need for micro sized machine screws and in fact created a need for additional grounding, this method has not reduced the costs and complexity of the traditional screw type assembly.